I am a solo war gamer endlessly searching for old Peter Laing figures, and the perfect war-game rules to use with them

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

New Hexes & a Battle Cry Ancient Wargame.

I received my new Heroscape swamp water hexes. I'm very pleased with them. Anyone who has put together a Heroscape board will tell you that the pieces can be rather difficult to put together. These pieces went together easily, taking maybe ten to fifteen minutes to assemble the board based on the Battlelore board. As the hexes are flat, the hill hexes don't lock together as they do with normal Heroscape hexes.

I wanted to try the new board out, along with trying a different set of rules and using two armies from Neil Thomas' book; Ancient & Medieval Wargaming. I wanted to try a Battle Cry variant for ancient battles. I used the recommended Persian & Greek armies. Both armies have 8 units. The first army to lose 4 units is defeated.

The new hexes in the typical Command & Colors 9x 13 board.

The new hexes with old hexes as hills.

The Greek Army on top; Persians on bottom.

The armies close. Most of the Greeks are heavy infantry so they are slow to move forward.

The Greek light infantry push back a Persian unit.

The Immortals are stopped by the light infantry.

The Immortals are hit hard and suffer 60% losses.

The Greeks push back two infantry unit.

The Greek light infantry is eliminated.

The Persians start shifting their cavalry to their left flank.

The Greeks push back the Persian Blues, a unit that has distinguished itself in other games.

The Persian Blues counterattack, and eliminates the Greek unit.

The Greeks manage to push back the Persian center.

The Persians now sends forward their cavalry on the left. The cavalry on the right pushes back the Greek left.

The Persians overrun two units. The Greeks have lost four units, and the battle.

In the end I think that I will use Battlelore for my ancient wargames. After all, those rules were made for Medieval warfare. I also think I will use a point system to pick units in the army. I will also allow the army to deploy in the first two back rows, instead of just the last row. This will allow heavy troops to close sooner and allow for more centrally located reserves.

I wanted to try some of my terrain in the new hexes. I'm happy with the results. I think the new Heroscape hexes was well worth the money.